May 28, 2012

Today was a successful Memorial Day, mostly. It started out with me being woken up by a customer. I had a choice if I was going to pick up the phone or not since it’s WEEKEND support and not HOLIDAY support, but I did anyway. Hey, it’s a guaranteed $50 on my next paycheck!

Anyhow, while working on that customer’s issue (moved an encrypted filesystem mount, but didn’t move the keys with it), my wife came in with breakfast consisting of breakfast burritos (homemade) and a big glass of milk. Damn, I love that woman! So after that happened, we sat down and watched some tube together (which isn’t a tube anymore… one of those terms that’s just around still) until about 11. Then the kid and I ran down to one of the local cemeteries for one of the Memorial Day shows.

Fantastic music!

When that was done, we got home, I put him down for a nap, then I chilled for a bit. By chilled, I mean I washed a ton of dishes, cleaned the kitchen, and cleaned up outside where I still had a bunch of crap from cleaning up the garden. The previous homeowners didn’t use it for anything so it was in REALLY rough shape. However, now it’s a pretty likeable garden again!

You can see the CLEAN part off on the left. The really green part of the garden… are WEEDS. Almost entirely blindweed and a second, as yet undetermined weed covering it. They WERE covering the entire garden. I’ve since cleaned out most of those remaining weeds as well. Probably about 5-6 hours of work, but worth it. Once they’re pulled out, the entire garden will be manageable. If you look to the back of the picture, 2 rows to the right of the bucket, you’ll see larger plants. Those are our potatoes and they’re doing amazing. There are weeds around them still, but that’s it. The rest have been cleaned out since that picture was taken.

The wife and I had invited some friends over for dinner, so we got the kid up, changed, dressed, and ready. When they got here, we finished out the day eating some T-Bones, corn, and potato salad. We sat around talking while the kids (my boy and his girl who is not yet a year old) played in the kiddie pool. No pics of his kid because hey, it’s HIS kid!

I filled up the pool earlier in the morning. One huge difference between Ohio and Utah is that Utah has very cold water in comparison. Even the faucet water is MUCH much colder! By the time we were eating (about 5-6 hours), the water temperature in the kiddie pool raised to a respectable room temperature level!

My kid learned that if he walked over to the driveway and squatted down in his swim diaper after being in the pool, he could ‘paint’ with the water on the concrete.

Time to head out, but I figure this is worth mentioning. I saved it for last, even though it was just after the bagpipe show. We went and found a WWII vet’s gravestone.

George E HeindelS SGT, US ARMYWORLD WAR IIFEB 8 1922 – JUN 29 1995

No, we don’t have any idea who the fellow was. All that matter was that he stepped forward when his nation called.

Hand salute!

Yes, it took some prompting, but since he saw quite a few salutes already, he only had to be shown once! Here he is showing his respects to SSgt Heindel.

One thing that I noticed as we were leaving the cemetery today is that I saw a TON of WWII headstones almost all dated post-2000. Our WWII and Korea vets are dying at an alarming rate. That’s what happens with old age, I suppose. There are fewer and fewer veterans around from that era, folks. They’re called “The Greatest Generati0n” and if you asked, most people couldn’t tell you why. Find a WWII vet (or any vet for that matter) and ask them their stories! There’s a lot to learn from them if we just ask the right questions. Learn from them so you can properly remember them when it’s too late to learn any more.

Thank you to every person that’s served and an even bigger THANK YOU to every person that served and can no longer read this. Your sacrifices are the reason I was able to enjoy today with my son and wife.